What it is
The end of flowering: the buds stop growing and finish ripening. The grower picks the harvest day, and that day changes the result a lot.
The signs
The pistils (little hairs) go from white to orange or brown and curl in. It's a clue, but it's misleading: heat or a knock darkens them early.
The sign that never fails is the trichomes, which are checked with a 30 to 60x magnifier.
The trichomes
Clear (like glass): not ready yet. The THC is still being made.
Milky (white, cloudy): the peak of THC. A more active, heady effect.
Amber: part of the THC turns into CBN, which gives a heavier, more relaxing effect.
Most people harvest with almost all milky and 10 to 30 % amber. If it goes too far, it loses potency.
Before cutting
Many growers stop feeding the last 1 or 2 weeks and water with plain water (the "root flush"), so the plant uses up what it has stored. It is also common to harvest at the end of the night, before the light turns on.
🎮 Practice it in UnderGrow
The harvest stage starts at the sweet spot. With the microscope (tap the plant › micro) you look at the trichomes and harvest right from there; the panel's ripeness bar shows the same %. The sweet spot is 81 to 85 % ripeness: milky with a little amber, like in real life, with 100 % of the grams and max potency. Before that you get fewer grams (and the effect is more active); after, with lots of amber, the effect is more relaxing and potency drops. At 100 % ripeness it's overripe.
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